The International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 520 (Union), the chargingparty, filed a charge with the Illinois State Labor Relations Board, now known as the IllinoisLabor Relations Board (Board) (5 ILCS 315/5.1 (West 2000)), alleging that the City ofCollinsville (City), the respondent to the charge, refused to abide by section 3.4 of theparties' collective bargaining agreement (Agreement). The Union alleged that the City'srefusal to abide by section 3.4 of the Agreement was an unfair labor practice that isproscribed by the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act (Act) (5 ILCS 315/1 et seq. (West1998)). An administrative law judge conducted a hearing and issued a recommendeddecision that the City had violated sections 10(a)(1) and 10(a)(4) of the Act (5 ILCS315/10(a)(1), (a)(4) (West 1998)) by refusing to bargain with the Union and by unilaterallyrepudiating section 3.4 of the Agreement. The administrative law judge failed to addressthe issue raised in count II of the complaint-whether the City had violated the Act byrefusing to comply with section 3.4 of the Agreement. The City filed an exception to theadministrative law judge's decision. The Union filed exceptions, due to the fact that theadministrative law judge failed to include a specific finding that the City had violatedsection 3.4 of the Agreement. Subsequent to oral argument, the Board entered an order onJune 9, 2000, affirming the administrative law judge's determination that the City hadviolated section 10(a)(4) of the Act and further finding that the City had violated the Act bybreaching section 3.4 of the Agreement. The Board also determined that the Agreement wasa valid and binding contract. The City filed a timely petition for administrative review.

The relevant facts are as follows. The City is a non-home-rule municipality. In 1967,the City's voters approved a referendum adopting article 10, division 1, of the IllinoisMunicipal Code (Code) (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1965, ch. 24, par. 10-1-1 et seq. (now see 65 ILCS5/10-1-1 et seq. (West 2000))). The Union and the City have had a long-term collectivebargaining relationship, dating back to the early seventies. Since 1973, the Union hasrepresented the bargaining unit of the City's public works employees in the sewer, street, andwater departments. Since 1980, the parties' Agreement has included a provision that allowsexisting employees to transfer into vacant bargaining unit positions. This provision wasincluded in section 3.4 of the Agreement and states as follows:

"When a job vacancy occurs within the Bargaining Unit, that same job classificationshall be posted for bid for five (5) working days. In the event a unit employee oremployees sign the bid list, the job shall be awarded to the highest senior Unionemployee[,] provided he shall have the skill and ability to do the work, after 60 days. It is understood that only one vacancy need be filled by the bidding procedure. Anysubsequent vacancies shall be filled by the Employer from the list of availablecandidates furnished by the Civil Service Commission. A successful bidder shall beon probation for 60 days in the new position, during which time he may betransferred back to his former position by the Employer or voluntarily elect to returnto his former position. An employee can successfully bid a vacancy twice during theterm of the contract. Any time during the sixty days['] probation period[] the seniorUnion employee turns down the job or is sent back for just cause to his old positionby the Employer, the next senior Union employee on the original bid list will havethe opportunity to bid for the job. Should the next senior employee not work out forany reason, the Employer may select the third Union employee from the bid list or goto the Civil Service Commission to fill the position. Should the people at the top ofthe bid list not accept the open position, the process starts with the first personaccepting the position. Any opening created by the bidding procedure does not needto be bid."

This provision was included in the parties' Agreement that expired on April 30, 1998.

In March 1998, the parties commenced negotiations for a successor contract. Afterseveral bargaining sessions, the Union made a proposal. In July 1998, the City approved theUnion's proposal. On August 24, 1998, the Collinsville city council executed ordinancenumber 2884 approving the Agreement between the City and the Union for the period May1, 1998, through April 30, 2002. The ordinance stated that the City's mayor and clerk wereauthorized to sign the Agreement between the City and the Union. According to the City'sformer manager, Thomas Christie, this ordinance represented "the official culmination ofthe Union contract." We note parenthetically that section 3.4 of the Agreement wasunchanged from section 3.4 of the parties' previous Agreement that expired on April 30,1998. On August 26, 1998, the City forwarded three originals of the contract to the Union.

Upon receipt of the Agreement, the Union's representatives reviewed it to ensure thatit was consistent with the parties' agreement. During the review, the Union made fourchanges to the language in the parties' Agreement. The proposed revisions were as follows:

1. In section 3.4 (job vacancies), the Union proposed replacing the word "shall"with the word "may" in the following sentence: "Any subsequent vacanciesshall be filled by the Employer from the list of available candidates forwardedby the Civil Service Commission." (Emphasis added.)
2. In section 3.51 (assignments), the Union proposed adding the phrase "percalendar year" to the end of the provision that provides that the director hasthe discretion to move employees within job descriptions for either trainingor emergencies on a temporary basis "limited to a maximum of six months."
3. In section 7.1 (clothing allowance), the Union proposed substituting the word"director" for "employer" regarding who shall determine procedures for theclothing allowance.
4. The Union proposed deleting either section 4.4.1 (overtime) or section 4.4.5(overtime pyramiding) in order to resolve a Union-perceived conflict betweenthe provisions.

After making the foregoing changes, the Union representatives went to Christie's office. Since Christie was not there, they left the contract with his administrative assistant. She toldthem that the city council would have to approve the changes since it had already ratified thetentative contract.

On September 23, 1998, Christie wrote a letter to the Union informing it as follows: "The City *** cannot accept the additional changes to the contract that the City Councilrecently approved. All changes in wording were agreed with at the last negotiating session."On October 2, 1998, Christie sent another letter to the Union's business manager because hehad no response from his September 23, 1998, letter. Christie's letter stated as follows:

"Hearing no response from you to my letter of 9/23/98, the City *** herebyregards *** [the Union's] suggested changes as a counter[]offer and rejection of theCouncil[-]approved[-]and[-]signed contract of 8/24/98.

We therefore withdraw our signed 8/24/98 contract and will consider yourcounter[]offer for bargaining."

The City then expressed concern about section 3.4 of the parties' Agreement beingin conflict with the Code (65 ILCS 5/10-1-1 et seq. (West 1998)). The parties met to discussthe matter. The City stated that section 3.4 was not an appropriate subject for bargainingbecause the Code's civil service provisions set forth the exclusive method for filling vacantpositions. The Union claimed that section 3.4 was legal, and it stated its willingness toaccept the Agreement without the changes it had proposed. The Union then sent copies ofthe Agreement that were signed by the Union without the changes that were proposed by theUnion.

The City did not sign the draft agreement. Since October 1998, it has implementedevery provision of the draft agreement except section 3.4. Since October 15, 1998, threevacancies have occurred involving bargaining unit positions that the City filled by hiringindividuals through the City's civil service procedure instead of allowing employees to bidon the position pursuant to section 3.4 of the Agreement.

On November 16, 1998, the Union brought an unfair labor practice charge in casenumber S-CA-99-056, alleging that the City was refusing to abide by section 3.4 of theparties' Agreement. Count I of the complaint alleged that the City committed an unfair laborpractice in violation of sections 10(a)(1) and 10(a)(4) of the Act by refusing to bargain ingood faith over filling job vacancies within the bargaining unit. Count II alleged that theCity's refusal to abide by section 3.4 of the Agreement was a repudiation of that provisionand also an unfair labor practice. The City filed an answer denying that it had committedany unfair labor practices.

On August 25, 1999, an administrative law judge conducted an evidentiary hearing. The administrative law judge issued a recommended decision and order sustaining theUnion's charges. Specifically, the administrative law judge found the following:

"1. The transfer procedure is not preempted by the Illinois Civil Service statute.

 2. The transfer of employees to positions within the bargaining unit is amandatory bargaining subject because it involves terms and conditions ofemployment.

3.  The City failed to bargain in good faith with [the Union] about the parties[']established transfer procedure[,] in violation of Section[s] 10(a)(4) and[(a)](1) of the Act.

4.  The City violated Section[s] 10(a)(4) and [(a)](1) of the Act when itunilaterally discontinued the established transfer procedure."

Although the administrative law judge never explicitly stated whether the parties formed avalid collective bargaining agreement, the foregoing order shows that he implicitlydetermined that a contract between the parties existed.

Both parties filed exceptions to the administrative law judge's recommended decision. The Board heard oral arguments on March 20, 2000. On June 9, 2000, the Board issued awritten decision in favor of the Union. The Board agreed with the administrative law judgethat the Code did not preempt section 3.4 of the Agreement and that the City violated section10(a)(4) of the Act by "unilaterally discontinuing its long-established practice of allowingbargaining unit members to transfer to vacant unit positions and by refusing to bargain ingood faith with [the Union] about the transfer procedure."

The Board also addressed the question whether the parties entered into a validcollective bargaining agreement. The Board determined that the parties had a "meeting ofthe minds." Thus, the Board held that as of August 24, 1998, the date that the city councilapproved the collective bargaining agreement, the parties formed an enforceable contract. The Board concluded that the City's refusal to abide by section 3.4 of the Agreement wasan unfair labor practice pursuant to the Act. The Board then ordered the City to abide byand apply section 3.4 of the Agreement as ratified by the City on August 24, 1998, and tomake whole any employees that were adversely affected by the City's failure to followsection 3.4 of the Agreement.

The City filed a timely petition for administrative review.

The City claims that the Board erroneously held that an agreement existed betweenthe City and the Union. The City claims that since no agreement existed, no unfair laborpractice was committed.

Initially, we must determine the proper standard of review. The City claims that thequestion whether a contract exists is a question of law. The City claims that a reviewingcourt is not bound to give deference to the conclusions of an administrative agency whenreviewing questions of law and will reverse a decision based upon an erroneousinterpretation or application of the law. See Maybell v. Illinois Liquor Control Comm'n, 246Ill. App. 3d 14, 22, 614 N.E.2d 1370, 1376 (1993). The Union argues that the issue ofwhether a contract exists presents a mixed question of law and fact and is reviewable underthe "clearly erroneous" standard set forth in Belvidere v. Illinois State Labor RelationsBoard, 181 Ill. 2d 191, 205, 692 N.E.2d 295, 302 (1998).

Administrative review law governs the judicial review of Board decisions. 5 ILCS315/11(e) (West 1998). Pursuant to administrative review law, an agency's findings of factare held to be prima facie true and correct and must be upheld unless they are against themanifest weight of the evidence. 735 ILCS 5/3-110 (West 1998). Although we are notbound by the Board's legal determinations, we will defer to the Board's reasonableconstruction of a statute that it is charged with enforcing. Burbank v. Illinois State LaborRelations Board, 128 Ill. 2d 335, 345, 538 N.E.2d 1146, 1149 (1989). If a case involves amixed question of law and fact, the "clearly erroneous" standard applies. Belvidere, 181 Ill.2d at 205, 692 N.E.2d at 302.

Although we were unable to find any Illinois decision that has determined whichstandard applies to the review of a Board finding that a collective bargaining contract wascreated, in Paxton-Buckley-Loda Education Ass'n v. Illinois Education Labor RelationsBoard, 304 Ill. App. 3d 343, 350, 710 N.E.2d 538, 544 (1999), and Burbank v. Illinois StateLabor Relations Board, 185 Ill. App. 3d 997, 999, 1002-04, 541 N.E.2d 1259, 1261, 1263-64 (1989), the courts applied the manifest-weight standard to labor board determinations asto the existence of other types of contracts. Additionally, in the absence of bindingauthority, Illinois courts often look to federal decisions construing the National LaborRelations Act (29 U.S.C.